I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends
When a spouse dies, many widows and widowers find that they have not only lost their loved one, but their social circle as well. It is hard to be single in a world of couples.
The Mission Statement of our widows and widowers’ group is to offer comfort and support to those who have lost a spouse and need help getting their life back on track socially, with the help of God and new friends. Our Purpose is to provide a place to socialize in a safe environment with others who know and appreciate what we are going through.
Taking the First Step
Ken died when we were both 53 years old. The year after he died, the husband of a friend of mine died. A new widows and widowers’ group was getting started and my friend jumped on the bandwagon. She became active right away and tried to get me to join, unsuccessfully, for years.
I was too busy working and raising my children to even think of going out socially. I’m not sure what I thought the group was like, but it stressed me out to even hear her talk about it. I think I had it confused with couples’ groups I had heard about that focused on “meeting someone new”.
The morning of my 60th birthday, I asked myself whether I intended to crawl into bed for the rest of my life or get out and do something. I decided to try my friend’s group.
I wasn’t ready to go to their big monthly dinner meeting, but I thought I could try something small. The 2nd and 4th Saturdays of the month some of the group meet for breakfast at Perkins. Afterwards most of them stay and play Mexican Train Dominos.
I had never played dominos, but I do enjoy breakfast and, of course, my friend would be there. To make a long story short, I felt welcome right away. I not only ate and stayed to play dominos, but the next thing I knew, I was on the Board of Directors. As Vice President, no less.
Not A Support Group
Shortly after I joined, my Grandson who lives with me, noticed my frequent absences and asked, “What do you do there, sit around and cry?” I explained to him that, quite the contrary, we have a lot of fun. We don’t have to apologize for laughing out loud at something we find funny. Sometimes, when I run into a friend that I haven’t seen in years, they still greet me with that pitying voice like my husband died yesterday. At our club activities, we don’t have to validate our grief, we all know it is there, but it doesn’t have to define us.
On the other hand, we all have those moments when we are suddenly hit by a memory, and yes, we do cry. The difference is that no one thinks anything of it. There is no reason to be embarrassed by it. For one of our Christmas Dinner Meetings, as a special treat, we arranged for a singer to entertain us. Oh My God! He thought he was doing us a favor by singing a lot of the old love songs, but he had the whole room in tears. You would have thought he would consider who he was performing for before setting his play list.
Activities
We offer many different activities every month. We have our Saturday Breakfasts and Dominos, of course. We have a stitchery group, a book club, Euchre club, and our monthly Dinner Meeting. We sometimes offer an evening at a winery or go to a play or movie. We occasionally play miniature golf. We used to go bowling once a month, but too many of our members were having problems with their knees or backs and started showing up afterward just to go out to eat. All of our activities seem to include a meal, or at least an ice cream cone.
We always schedule a lunch every Sunday. If it happens to be Easter or Mother’s or Father’s Day, we make certain that we have some activity scheduled for the Saturday before. We print a monthly calendar of our events and on the back, we offer other information on Day Trips, Brown Bag Lunches at the library, directions to our venues and a list of new members.
In October, we have a Halloween Party, and in August we have our annual Picnic. These events are pot luck, with the club furnishing the main entree for the Picnic (fried chicken and pulled pork), and cider and donuts for the Halloween Party. During the months of October thru December we also have a food drive for the food bank of the church that is kind enough to give us the use of a room for our monthly Planning Meeting.
The Board of Directors
Our board includes the following: President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, Restaurant Coordinator, Calling Chairman, Publicity, Sunshine Chairman, and Greeters. Each October we take nominations for the next term, in November we vote, and in December we install the new board.
What usually happens is that when we pass out the forms for nominations, everyone just fills them out with the names of the people who are already doing those jobs. No one ever wants to volunteer. So far, we have been lucky to keep board members on for extra terms, but people are beginning to burn out.
Even though we stress that the Planning meeting isn’t just for board members, but also for others to come and give us their input as to what events they would like to see on the calendar in the future, no one does. We may have to set up a Nominating Committee and draft people to get them involved.
The main purpose of the planning meeting, of course, is to plan the next month’s calendar. We also plan special events, resolve scheduling or venue problems, and define and clarify rules when necessary.
Dating
We are NOT a dating club or singles group. We are very emphatic on the point that this club is for widows and widowers only. There are many singles groups out there for divorced people to join. To allow divorced (or never married) people to join our group would introduce a whole new dynamic that we do not want to deal with. When people ask about our group, often they want to know if it costs anything to join. I always tell them that they have already paid a greater price to join than anyone should ever have to. Other singles have not paid that price.
We had a situation a few years ago, where a member of our group started seeing someone who was not a widow and wanted to bring her to our activities. We said “No, that was not allowed.” Some people in our group apparently had the same idea and objected to our decision. We lost a small group of members over it, but most of the group appreciated that we had stuck to the rules.
Occasionally two people in our group will start seeing each other exclusively. This is fine. As long as they are dating and don’t marry, they are still welcome to do things with the group. However, once they marry, they no longer qualify to be a part of us. A lot of couples who did meet through our group left on their own because they developed other interests. We are thrilled that things worked out for them.
Personality Conflicts
I have been President of our widows and widowers’ group for 6 terms. Not all consecutively. I have also been an assistant at a pre-school since 2001. I am constantly amused by how similar my two jobs can be at times.
I get phone calls complaining about how someone doesn’t want to play dominos at the same table as a person who starts forgetting how to play late in the day. Or sometimes someone new comes in and wants to change the rules of the game because they played it differently somewhere else.
One woman doesn’t want to ever be seated at a table with a certain man because he smokes and she can smell it on his clothes.
Most of our restaurant choices are popular, but boy, do I hear it when they are not.
Some people complain that there are certain “cliques” in the club.
Comfort
The thing I like to remember is that the reason people feel they can complain to me is because they are COMFORTABLE doing it. We all have little things that bother us. A lot of the time we don’t say anything about them because that wouldn’t fit in with the way people in general think widows or widowers should act.
When we are together, we are like a family. We feel comfortable expressing our feelings and opinions because underneath it all we know that we have a common bond. We don’t have to explain ourselves or be ashamed of our feelings because we have all been there. And together we will all get through it.
Have you joined a social group? I’d love to hear about it.
‘til then……I’m Kitty